What You Need to Know

August 14, 2014

The Wednesday Takeaway
On Tuesday, the Phillies stymied the Angels for five innings, only to watch them erupt for seven runs in the sixth. Yesterday, White Sox starter Jose Quintana worked around a leadoff triple by Buster Posey in the fourth inning to hold the Giants scoreless through six.

That gave the South Siders’ offense ample time to solve their old mate, Jake Peavy, who was seeking his first win in a Giants uniform. Adam Dunn did ...

Your browser does not support iframes.

... and at the seventh-inning stretch, it seemed his splash bomb would be sufficient for the White Sox to earn a sweep on their two-game swing through San Francisco.

Pablo Sandoval flied out to begin the last of the seventh. Then Michael Morse and Adam Duvall followed with singles that put runners on the corners with one away. The Giants had already failed twice to plate a runner from third with fewer than two outs, and they were on the brink of going 0-for-3 in that department.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Joe Panik hit a broken-bat slow bouncer to Jose Abreu and the first baseman fired home well ahead of pinch-runner Gregor Blanco. Catcher Tyler Flowers tagged Blanco out, and the White Sox were still up 1-0. Before 2014, the story would have ended there. Now, though, we’ve got pesky Rule 7.13, and with his squad scuffling, Bruce Bochy had the potential for a run-scoring technicality on his mind.

The rest of this article is restricted to Baseball Prospectus Subscribers.

Not a subscriber?

Click here for more information
on Baseball Prospectus subscriptions or use the buttons to the right to subscribe and get access to the best baseball content on the web.

Was last night's Mets game too late to include the play at the plate where the catcher's foot was placed in exactly the same spot? Nearly identical play (but a bit closer)--and this time the runner was ruled out! The stupidity of MLB executives doth pass all understanding. The 'blocking rule" is ambiguous, but it does say that the umpire makes the call. Just stop the stupid replays in such cases and let the UMP call it as he sees it!

shmage: Even the Nats' announcers were read to concede that run for a while. I'm pretty sure that they just flip a coin for these calls after yesterday... although they must flip it off of an airplane given the amount of time it take for them to make up their mind.

At this point, is there any reason to hold a runner at third? I say, send any runner to the plate and then challenge the catcher's foot placement. You've got at least as good a chance of getting the run as you do of having a later batter drive him in.

(In fact, do this a few times and see how fast MLB figures out a clarification, *any* clarification...)